Facial expression recognition is a very important non-verbal way for people to properly communicate with each other. Automatic facial expression recognition has been developed so that computers and other devices can use this tool to interact effectively with people in order to anticipate the desires or needs of a person as well as to assist people to interact with each other through certain mediums. These systems are used in applications such as perceptual user interfaces, vehicle driving safety devices, access control systems, facial animation for gaming or avatar communication, telenursing or remote medical care, online learning and edutainment programs, and so forth.
Dynamic facial expression recognition aims to continuously identify facial expressions spontaneously exhibited in captured or live video sequences. Conventional facial expression recognition methods, however, are either insufficient to detect subtle differences in facial features or are too computationally expensive. Thus, more efficient, accurate facial expression recognition is desired.